. you're watching cbs5 eyewitness news. >> everything is gone. everything we own is gone. there is nothing left. people died. >> tales of survival after thursday's gas line explosion. good evening. i'm dana king. >> just about 28 hours after a ruptured pipeline destroyed a neighborhood we are get a clearer picture of what's left. >> melted glass, burned vehicles and chimney stacks all that's left where houses stood just yesterday. >> survivors not allowed to go back to their homes, are gathering at shelters. >> we still don't know why it happened. crews there investigating what is left of that line. >> we have team coverage of

today's developments. robert lyles looking in to complaints, people say they made about the smell of gas and we are tracking survives trying to find information about their homes. >> we will start with joe vasquez who took a walking tour of the remnants of the neighborhood. >> reporter: you with see behind me this is a checkpoint, california highway patrol here telling people they can't go in the major access way into the neighborhood. they are saying it's a crime scene, 24 hours plus after the fire. we will to hike through a brush area, very difficult hike to bring you these pictures. burned earth, a close up look at the center of the blast showing the deadly consequences of the rupture. the explosion destroyed homes in the middle of the neighborhood. the huge 30-foot wide crater marking the center.

the closest homes were leveled. all that's left in some are the chimneys. we found large chunks of asphalt thrown a good 100-yard from the scene. leaves on the closest trees burned off. as we walked further the homes were burned down but at least were still shells, all the win douse blown out at this house. take a look at garage. collapsed right on top of the car. it's almost unrecognizable as a vehicle and right over there the other car, a pick up, the tires melted off. fire crews still hard at work on the scene putting out the few remaining hot spots. they are also fixing power poles laid waste by the devastating fire. as soon as we shot this video there, as soon as matt shot it we were told we had to leave the area. police said we couldn't be there. they were setting up a pool cam are situation where they would

bring in a photographer of their own. neighbors here -- they are frustrated. they have been coming here p them just trying to get medication. many just trying to see if their homes still there. they are being told it's a crime scene and the entire area is blocked off. >> always good to get in and be able to see what is left. it gives some people some peace of mind. for others it's a point of closure i suppose so they can move on. all right. joe vasquez, thank you both very much. the coroner said that four people are confirmed dead. a 20-year-old jessica morales is one of them. we talked to the family and they said that jessica was visiting her boyfriend at the time. her family filed a report with police yesterday and then waited for answers. >> about 2:30 we were on hold waiting for the police

department to come back and tell us any news that they may have found and we got a call, a knock on the door from the coroner and the coroner was standing two police officers and at that moment i just knew it wasn't good. we had her that -- had indicated he saw jessica die and that there was nothing he could do to save her. i went to the hospital and hoped that maybe he could give me something to hope for. we were told by neighbors that they saw jessica run out after him. he had ran back in and then saw her run after him. then we could never confirm she was still alive so that little hope was there for us and the knock on the door this afternoon just confirmed what our greatest fear was.

>> family members say the boyfriend was in the hospital with burns to 50% of his body. and we talked to another man who barely escaped the explosion. >> all the sudden i was just walking and my floor completely came -- wood floors just exploded up. threw me against the wall, after that i got up, went to the back door and i looked out and saw my hot tub and everything was on fire, the backyard, flames shooting across. i opened the door and the smoke, black smoke came in and i sucked in and went i'm in trouble. opened the front door just exploded in my face. i fell back and then like asphalt was shooting into the house. i slammed the door shut. i couldn't even move. i was just on fire immediately. i turned the other way and i started running up the hill. next thing i know, my feet, my

shoes melting, i threw them off and running up the street and the ground is so hot and i'm just feeling myself peeling and then i saw my neighbor holding his two little babies and the back of his legs were burned up and people were just all -- just screaming. if i would have waited another two, three minutes that was it, i wouldn't have got out the door. the flames were surrounding the house all the way around. it was -- i don't -- it was a massive, massive flame. it wouldn't stop. everything is gone. everything we own is gone. there is nothing left. that is irrelevant though, because people died. people died. >> doctors wanted him to stay in the hospital but he chose to leave. he is planning to go back though because he said he has pain shooting from his head down to his spine. >> we have been showing you

part of the neighborhood is destroyed. three streets were hit the hardest. you can see from this map just where they were. the red dots show 37 homes that were destroyed. the yellow dots are the houses that suffered major damage and the blue are home that were damaged but not destroyed. that list means the waiting is over for families left wondering if they have a house to return to. homeowners got word just a few hours ago. >> here at the veteran's memorial center a lot of tears today. this was the place to go if you wanted a hot meal, fresh clothe clothes and most importantly, information. here at main red cross center they came looking for news, good or bad. >> the list that's being given out to you identities approximately 38 properties that have been checked as a

total loss. >> reporter: the city gathered a group of homeowners to hand out a list of addresses of damaged or destroyed homes. >> your house had no evidence of damage. >>cool. >> reporter: for some it was the first word they had that they still had a home to go back to. >> good news so far. until we see it. >> reporter: you got good news? >> yeah. very good news. >> reporter: the force of the blast threw julio against the wall. he escaped the flame was second degree burns to his head, hand and back. when he fled his house it was damaged by standing. many you survived, four home. who do you thank? >> god. god helped me. >> reporter: the red cross wants all survivors to check in at the shelter at city parkway. that's where one found her mother.

they had split up just as the flames moved in and destroyed their home. >> you grow up in that house? >> yes from ten and my dad died in that house. all our memories are there. i saw that our house was all flat and i thought she was dead in the fire. >> thank god we are alive. >> reporter: all the evacuees have been moved in to hotels so they have shut this place down for the night. only a skeleton crew remains and they want to pass the word they aren't accepting donations here anymore. if you want to donate take it to a nearby salvation army. >> thank you. >> a number of bay area churches offering support to victims of the blast. church of the highlands in san bruno held a special prayer service. the church asked as back up relief center for the red

cross. leaders say they have received such an outpouring of support from the community that they are actually no longer accepting donations of supplies. the national transportation and safety board is taking the lead in the investigation into what be went wrong. from the beginning neighbors reported that they had smelled gas for days before the blast. robert lyle shows us some still smell it. >> reporter: i'm standing less than two miles from where that ruptured 30-inch wide gas main turned a neighborhood here in san bruno into dante's unfortunatelyo. i was just there about an hour ago and you cannot only still smell gas in the air, pg and e crews were beneath a home in that neighborhood trying to stop a gas leak despite all that happened yesterday and the folk who live there say it has been that way for weeks.

with flash lights and meters they searched 2535 lexington looking for a gas leak. it's just three blocks where more than 30 homes why destroyed by a pg and e ruptured gas main last night. >> it's scary. that could have been here. or in front of my house. >> reporter: this isn't the first time they have been to the house. >> they have been here four or five times. >> reporter: rod shares the house with another man. both say the smell of gas has been coming from the lawn and driveway. >> it's the leak could be down the street and venting out through the ground up here. they aren't 100% sure on where it is. they repaired a little leak by the washing machine. no other leak found. then we kept smelling the gas. >> reporter: in fact several

homeowners say they have smelled gas for weeks prior to the explosion and made reports. we started asking questions about homeowners complaints of smelling gas and if crews responds. hear is when he got. have you started an investigation into those allegations? >> we want to know the answers and will cooperate with the ntsb as they investigate that aspect of the accident. we want to know what happened and they will get to the cause. >> reporter: have you started any process of that? >> we have started. prior to the ntsb and now that they are here they have taken responsibility for the investigation. >> reporter: because they have stepped in you can't give us information about possible leaks? >> the way it work social security once the ntsb takes control of the situation, by federal law we are not really allowed to provide any information about the accident. >> reporter: we dug deeper found the ntsb released a

report in may showing the california public utilities commission investigated the company and found representatives weren't propererly trained in detecting leaks. what does the company have to say? >> i think you will have to talk to someone with more specific information than i have available today. >> reporter: who is that? >> have you to talk to davi >> reporter: so i did. in fact is he another spokesperson for pg and e. he said tonight he is vaguely familiar with that report identitying that crews were not trained in detecting gas leaks but he was supposed to call us back before air time. we have yet to receive a call. we should also update for those affected by the explosion here thursday will be a town hall meeting tomorrow at 2:00 at saint robert's church. that's on crystal springs road. anyone living in the area who has questions will have those

questions answered at tomorrow's meeting. for now back to you. >> in the meantime, considering all that we have witnessed in the -- the families have gone through, did the company have any recommendations for the families who smell gas now? >> reporter: they not only had no recommendations again as she stated in the sound bite they won't even address the fact that possibly homeowners called. now earlier in the day they made the point they were looking in to records to determine how many calls for service had been to any of the properties but now claim because it's a federal investigation they can't even address that. >> all right. thank you. >> stay with us. we will be right back. b-a-c-c-a-l-a-u-r-e-a-t-e.

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on how crews handled the explosion and subsequent fire. . the fire chief is finally getting a chance to reflect on how crews handled the explosion and the fire. first responders were put to the test and don shows you that some things were out of their control. with in minutes of the first call at 6:12 firefighters were on the scene. facing the fiercest flames they had ever seen. >> very been in the service 31 years and never seen anything like it. >> reporter: 18 minutes later it was six alarms. crews 20 other departments including san francisco international airport, half moon bay and alameda came to fight. they were at a disadvantage. >> we uses everything we had.

foam, water, we said we just tried to contain the flames, tried to keep it in a plume. that was our objective and obviously it was so powerful it blew right through. >> reporter: it took crews as long as an hour and a half to turn off the flames from the gas line buried three feet underground. >> when you get that much heat sometimes you aren't going to succeed. you know at that point you -- we call it defensive mode and pull back. reassess, make sure nobody will get hurt and then just try to protect anything we can. >> reporter: he credits crews with working fast to shut down the delivery and smaller lines. the blast also ripped out a waterline cutting the fire department's supply. put a delay. we didn't have much success with the water putting out the fire. we readjusted the units to keep

exposure down and waited for the flame to be put out. >> reporter: despite that neighbors generally praised them. >> i thought they were great. >> reporter: jim said firefighters came together in a great job. >> nobody in the world is prepared to fight this unless you are ready for a carpet bomb with naplam. in the photographs right here some looks like apocalypse now. nobody can prepare for it. nobody. >> reporter: another part of the story is the mutual aid. they treat the county like one big fire department and they dispatch the next closest equipment and people. they had about 170 pieces of equipment. 50 or 60 firefighters put out the fire. >> he we could all use good news in the form of weather.

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to try to steak in the sun. tomorrow is looking good. we will warm up the temperatures. 80, near 90s degrees. mid80's. toward the coastline. 60's and maybe a couple closes getting near 70. there is fog and it's pretty thick. it's dense out toward the coastline. it's not been able to move on shore. temperatures fairly mild. 67 livermore. 68 -- 64 oakland. high pressure not a strong one but strong enough to hold through the better part of the weekend. plenty of it. maybe even toward the coastline. a little sun after patchy morning fog. low cloud and fog picked up well by the computer model. toward the coastline early on. 7:00 in the morning. watch what happens through the day. that all starts to break up nicely and the coast just about clear out there as we head into the afternoon. temperatures warming up nicely.

plan on 80's as you head further inland. pair of eights livermore. 80 fremont. 69 san francisco. as we look out toward the next couple days temperatures will stay fairly warm. may start to cool off toward tuesday and wednesday and here is what is real interesting. toward next weekend maybe little rain returns to the bay area. you haven't got the raiders game tomorrow. 89 degrees. partly cloudy. slight chance of thunderstorms. back to you. >> all right. the giants have a chance to move into first place in the west and k crisp welcomes his former team to oakland. people! look at you!

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. all year long we have been waiting for this. wait, waiting -- happening things are happening. >> biggest series of the year. >> yeah. they are hanging in. >> i very you have been providing the big mojo. >> he ha waited 157 years for that. >> all right. after winning last night's series opener in san diego the giants had a chance to pull even with the padres tonight. scoreless game in the 7th. chopping one to third the padres get the out at second but he beats the throw to first. huff scores. the giants win 1-0 and are now tied for first in the west. cahill picking up his 16th win of the season. he got help from crisp. even the dug out was impressed as he reaches over and brings one back.

the a's beat the sox. neither williams sister will win the open. serena missed a foot injury and venus was knocked out today. the defending champ will play in the finals tomorrow. earlier in the day -- she upset the top seed against enstraight sets and snapped her 13 match winning streak. despite shooting a 72, matt remains in the lead at the championship. he is tied with wi. tiger is nine shots back. of course the giant assonancing today they will dedicate their next home game tuesday against the dodgers to the victims -- to the victims of the fire. >> wow. >> plus they will collect donations at the gate. >> that's fabulous. >> fantastic. >> a lot of that going around. >> so much goodwill. >> yeah. >> in the wake of that disaster. >> that's good to see. >> good. all right. thank you. >> sure. >> have a wonderful weekend.

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